Black Sox scandal: SF native Thom Ross paints fresh...

1of17Thom Ross, a San Francisco native who grew up in Sausalito, dons a replica 1919 White Sox uniform in his studio in Lamy, N.M.Photo: Adria Malcolm / Special to The Chronicle

2of17Thom Ross’ Willie Mays installation that was put up at the site of the old Polo Grounds in New York City on the 50-year anniversary of Mays’ over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series. The five figures are now in a private collection in Burlington, Vt.Photo: Thom Ross

3of17Thom Ross’ work “Custer's Last Stand” is a group of 200 figures from 2005 placed on the Little Bighorn Battlefield placed near Medicine Tail coulee, recreating the battle that killed American Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and hundreds of his men.Photo: Thom Ross

7of17“The Law — Kenesaw Mountain Landis,” watercolor on paper by artist Thom Ross, depicts the baseball commissioner who banned the eight members of the 1919 White Sox who conspired to throw the World Series.Photo: Wendy McEahern

11of17“Awaiting the Verdict,” watercolor on paper by artist Thom Ross, depicts seven members of the White Sox who played and conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. An eighth player, reserve Fred McMullin, was not a major factor in the series but overheard a conversation about the fix and demanded to be paid.Photo: Wendy McEahern

13of17“1919 Black Sox,” watercolor on paper by artist Thom Ross, highlights the eight players who conspired to throw the World Series amid a team depiction.Photo: Wendy McEahern

14of17Slides of sketches by artist Thom Ross inside his studio in Lamy, N.M. His paintings depicting the 1919 Black Sox, the fixing of that year’s World Series and the eight players who were banned for life from the game will be exhibited in Chicago this summer.Photo: Adria Malcolm / Special to The Chronicle

15of17“The Red Chair #1,” acrylic on paper by artist Thom Ross, depicts the eight members of the 1919 White Sox team who conspired to throw the World Series.Photo: Adria Malcolm / Special to The Chronicle

17of17An original copy of the Youngstown Vindicator newspaper reporting on the 1919 World Series is framed inside the New Mexico studio of artist Thom Ross.Photo: Adria Malcolm / Special to The Chronicle

One hundred years after the Chicago White Sox fixed the World Series, the characters are long gone, but the 1919 Black Sox scandal remains an intrigue of history, mythology and baseball lore.

Eight White Sox players, including two raised in the Bay Area, were banned for life for their part in conspiring with gamblers, and they’ve become fixtures in American culture for how they’ve been portrayed in books and movies, albeit not always accurately.

Now a San Francisco native is giving the story a fresh coat of paint.

“This story is about men who betrayed their sport, profession, fans, owners and, more than anything else, they betrayed themselves,” said artist Thom Ross, who grew up in Sausalito. “That’s the crime. They had to live out the rest of their lives in this shame. That’s the power of their story.”

Black Sox exhibit

Where: Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111st St., Chicago

When: June 9-July 21

What: Exhibit of 73 Thom Ross paintings and 37 pieces of memorabilia, including newspapers and photographs from 1919 and autographs from some who played in that World Series.

In the Black Sox centenary, Ross will be showing a series of his paintings on the South Side of Chicago, not far from the site of old Comiskey Park, where the White Sox fumbled away the decisive Game 8 in the Series, which was then best-of-nine.

Plus, ringleaders Chick Gandil and Swede Risberg. Gandil, the first baseman, grew up in Berkeley and attended Oakland High School in the early 1900s but dropped out and left home as a teen. Risberg, the shortstop, was born in San Francisco in 1894, was raised in North Beach and attended Hancock Grammar School. He survived the 1906 earthquake.

Works by Ross lie on his work table inside his studio. Paintings depicting the 1919 Black Sox players and scandal will be exhibited in Chicago this summer.

Photo: Adria Malcolm / Special to The Chronicle

An avid fan of stories from the Old West and the annals of baseball, 66-year-old Ross has exhibited larger-than-life cutout paintings of historical events at the sites they occurred, including Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn and Willie Mays’ World Series catch in New York.

The five-figure Mays sequence — Ross grew up an avid Giants fan — was placed on the site of the Polo Grounds on Sept. 29, 2004, the 50th anniversary of his catch that robbed Cleveland’s Vic Wertz in Game 1, setting momentum for the Giants’ four-game sweep of the heavily favored Indians.

In 2008, Ross lined up 100 plywood figures of Indians on horseback on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach near the Cliff House to re-create a 1902 photo of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, which was performing in the city before heading to Europe.

Now it’s the Black Sox, and Ross uses watercolor on paper and acrylic on canvas to illustrate the “humanity behind the characters.” The collection includes a 12-by-6½-foot painting of the team picture with wooden circles over the faces of the eight accused and buttons attached to the uniforms, giving it a three-dimensional look.

Also, there are two large cutouts of players emerging from a cornfield, a “Field of Dreams” reference.

“When I was young and fell in love with all my heroes, Davy Crockett, George Custer, Wyatt Earp, I’d read their stories and take them at face value,” said Ross, now living near Santa Fe, N.M. “As I grew older and began to examine the accounts, I realized different people were writing different accounts of the same event.

“We alter the facts to soothe our desire. If history is not what we want, we alter it to become what we want. We take someone from history, create this mythic thing, and that’s how we judge him. The real power lies in the myth.

“The Black Sox story fits in with that. I don’t think that little boy said, ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe.’ I don’t think Cicotte hit that guy on purpose (to signal the fix was in). I don’t think Comiskey was a cheapskate. I don’t think the White Sox were truly the better team.”

Artist Thom Ross inside his studio in Lamy, N.M.

Photo: Adria Malcolm / Special to The Chronicle

Richard Johnson, curator of the Sports Museum in Boston, called Ross’ depictions of the scandal “among his best work.”

Johnson, who has an art degree from Bates College in Maine, met Ross in the ’80s at one of his openings, and Ross was Johnson’s guest at the Boston premiere of “Eight Men Out” in 1988, attended by director John Sayles and actor D.B. Sweeney, who played Jackson.

“Thom’s the best and most qualified artist in the country to do this, no question about it,” Johnson said. “He gets into a subject and researches it assiduously and has a real attraction to the quintessential American stories that almost morphed into fables. The Black Sox seem to fit into that mold. I think that exhibit could be displayed at the National Gallery.”

Ross read roughly 30 books about the scandal and likes Gene Carney’s “Burying the Black Sox” for historical perspective and Nelson Algren’s “Chicago: City on the Make” for how he portrays Jackson in mythic and tragic terms.

As for movies?

“In John Sayles’ ‘Eight Men Out,’ he made a historical movie and attempted to cover one side of the coin, but a lot of those things didn’t happen,” Ross said. “In ‘Field of Dreams,’ W.P. Kinsella (who authored the book, “Shoeless Joe”) made the players into ghosts, myths and spirits, both sides of the coin showing historical truths and mythic desires. They’re equally important.

“We have these stories from history, and for some reason, we tweak them and then come to believe them. This is where we get our symbols of right and wrong, good and evil, and I wanted to tell my version of the Black Sox as both history and as an art form.”

The White Sox were considered heavy favorites, but Ross suggested Cincinnati could have won even if the White Sox were clean. The Reds had a better regular-season record, won the pennant by more games and had a Hall of Fame center fielder, Edd Roush, who won the batting crown. The White Sox were without star pitcher Red Faber, who missed the Series with an injury and illness.

Cicotte went 1-2 in the Series after a dominant regular season, just like Denny McLain in 1968, but as Ross noted, no one accused McLain of fixing the Series; sometimes good players have lousy postseasons.

“The truth is, Eddie Collins was a Hall of Famer and hit .226 that Series,” Ross said of the Chicago second baseman who was not tied to the scandal. “Cincinnati had more depth and played better ball, and Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver did nothing (on the field) to throw the Series.

“One reason the betting was heavy on the White Sox was because they won the Series two years earlier and the Reds had never been there.”

While Comiskey was portrayed as a tightwad, Ross cited a report that the White Sox boasted one of baseball’s highest payrolls and White Sox players made five of the top 16 salaries, including Collins, whose salary was second behind Ty Cobb’s.

“Everyone always hates the boss,” Ross said. “My gut feeling is, Comiskey wasn’t the problem. He did good things for Chicago. Some of these guys blamed Comiskey, but Happy Felsch was the most candid and admitted they took the money and were stupid.

“They weren’t crooks. They weren’t Al Capone. Just human beings at a time and a place, an embarrassing episode 100 years ago that I’m celebrating as an artist because it embraces the weaker side of our shared humanity. He who is without sin…”

A White Sox spokesperson said the team has no plans in 2019 to commemorate the 1919 season. That year’s team is acknowledged at the stadium, including on a left-field light standard with the White Sox’s other American League pennants.

Bay Area-raised Gandil and Risberg were mostly uneducated and tough guys. Gandil was a boxer. Risberg, who joked he quit third grade because he refused to shave, reportedly threatened Jackson not to squeal about the fix, prompting Shoeless Joe to say, “Swede is a hard guy.”

A grand jury convened in September 1920 to investigate, and Cicotte admitted to the fix. The eight players and five gamblers were indicted, and Comiskey kicked the remaining seven Black Sox off the team.

In a trial notable for evidence that went missing, including two signed confessions, the jury returned verdicts of not guilty on all charges in August 1921, but incoming Commissioner Landis banned all the players for life. Most continued to play ball in various leagues, but none returned to the majors.

Gandil became a plumber, returned to the East Bay and retired in Calistoga, where he died in 1970 at 82. He’s buried at St. Helena Cemetery in Napa Valley.

Risberg eventually settled in Weed, where he ran a tavern, and later moved to Red Bluff. The last living member of the Black Sox, he died in 1975 at 81 and is buried at Mount Shasta.

John Shea is the San Francisco Chronicle's national baseball writer and columnist. He is in his 33rd year covering baseball, including 28 in the Bay Area. He wrote three baseball books, including Rickey Henderson's biography ("Confessions of a Thief") and "Magic by the Bay," an account of the 1989 World Series.